What would change my mind about God?

It’s a good question. There is no simple answer.

Unicorn tapestry, 1495-1505, image from publicdomainreview.org.

I am an atheist. In the literal meaning of the term: a-theist, i.e., without a positive belief in gods. In the same sense I am a a-unicornist, meaning that I don’t think there is sufficient reason or evidence to accept the notion that unicorns are more than a figment of the human imagination.

Does this mean that I know for sure that there are neither gods nor unicorns around? No, of course not. After all, the existence of neither violates any law of logic—unlike, say, the definitely not existing square circles. And I haven’t exhaustively search the cosmos in order to verify that gods and unicorns are nowhere to be found.

Rather, my lack of belief is an epistemic judgment: insufficient reasons and evidence have, in my opinion, been put forth by believers in gods or unicorns, and it is rational to reject any belief that is not based on sufficient reason or evidence. Why, you may ask? Because there are a lot more possible false beliefs than true ones, a point superbly made by Jorge Luis Borges in his 1941 short story, The Library of Babel.

The story imagines a gigantic library containing all possible 410-page books written using the 25 characters of the English language (22 letters, the period, the comma, and space). Most of the books are gibberish. Some of them are readable, but contain nonsensical or false information. But one book, somewhere, must contain an accurate description of the universe and its history. Because there is one reality and an infinite number of books.

Similarly with any utterance we may make about the world, like “God exists.” Any particular utterance may be true, false, or partially true/false. But the number of possible utterances far outweighs the small set of true utterances. It follows that we need some sort of guide to sift the likely true from the likely false statements. And the best guidance we have been able to come up with are arguments based on logic (i.e., philosophy) and empirical evidence (i.e., science). Better yet when the two guides are combined.

Which brings me to the question of this essay, inspired by a similar one written by my friend Ed Bucker over at his Letters to a Free Country Substack: what would change my mind about god? (I assume you don’t care as much about unicorns.)

Here is the short answer: nothing.

And here is the more complex qualification: at least, no single event or phenomenon would change my mind about god. It would take a (very large) number of occurrences that might be sufficient to completely overturn the current scientific view of the world. Which is possible, but extremely unlikely.

For instance, if I suddenly heard a voice in my head telling me that it comes from god and that I need to repent for my sins I would immediately book an appointment with a psychiatrist or a neurologist. Because by far the simplest explanation for such disturbing a turn of events is that I was hallucinating or going mad.

But, I heard even some of my fellow atheists say, what if strange phenomena begin to be perceived by the whole of humanity? Imagine that the voice in my head simultaneously intrudes in everyone’s heads, giving them the same message?

That would certainly be more extraordinary and worthy of consideration. But my first instinct would still be to look for a materialist, scientific explanation based on natural phenomena and the law of cause and effect. Before you accuse me of close-mindedness, “faith” in scientific materialism, and all sorts of other nasty stuff, hear me out.

I’ll make my case by means of one of the best stories of the excellent sci-fi series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 13th episode of the 4th season, which aired on February 4, 1991, was entitled The Devil’s Due. Devils, remember, are just fallen gods, so this is obviously pertinent.

In the story, the Enterprise receives a distress call from the planet Ventax II. The population is in panic because Ardra, a mythological devil, has “returned” demand payment on a Faustian bargain made by the ancestors of the current inhabitants, a millennium earlier.

Apparently, Ventax II was then experiencing a planet-wide ecological collapse when Ardra appeared and saved the day, insuring one thousand years of peace and prosperity. In exchange she (yup, the Devil’s a woman!) made the people sign a contract according to which she would come back at the end of the millennium and enslave everyone. The time is now up, and sure enough Ardra has come to cash in, causing tremors and earthquakes to prove that she is who she claims to be.

Of course, Captain Picard—just like yours truly—doesn’t buy the story for a moment and suspects foul play made possible by some kind of hidden technology. Here is a funny scene where Picard confronts Ardra in a formal proceeding arbitrated by Data, the Enterprise sentient android:

Notice that at one point Ardra performs a number of “miracles” in quick successions, and asks Picard whether he can explain them. Honestly, he answers no. For the moment. But the crew of the Enterprise, and particularly Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, is hard at work to unravel the mystery and unmask the alleged devil. I will not tell you how it ends, in case you wish to watch the full episode. But the bottom line is: reason and science prevail over mythology and superstition.

Picard’s attitude is not dissimilar to the one recommended by Scottish philosopher David Hume in the 18th century. In his essay, Of Miracles, he wrote:

“When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. … If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.” (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748)

Picard doesn’t say so explicitly in The Devil’s Due, but his reasoning is exactly the same. He thinks that the notion that Ardra really is the Devil is far less likely than the hypothesis that she is a trickster, causing the alleged miracles by way of stealth, and hitherto unidentified, technology.

A believer—in either Ardra or God—would at this point accuse Hume, Picard, and myself of simply exchanging one faith for another. But that would be a superficial, and wholly incorrect, assessment of the situation.

What Hume is saying is that miracles are unbelievable because they do not naturally fit the rational / scientific view of the world. And that view has brought us a huge amount of theoretical and practical advancements, producing reliable and verifiable explanations for all sorts of phenomena. Conversely, the mystical / supernatural view of the world has produced exactly no advance in human knowledge, understanding, or ability to manipulate the world. None.

Statue of David Hume in Edinburgh, Scotland, photo by the Author.

It therefore stands to reason that we ought to reject supernatural “explanations” on the ground that they explain nothing and that they do not have a track record of explaining anything. The rejection, however, is not absolute, otherwise it truly would be a matter of faith. Rather, what Hume, Picard, and I are saying is that there is an awful lot of convincing to be done on the part of the supernaturalists, and a single unexplainable event, or even a number of unexplainable events, just ain’t gonna cut it.

The burden on the supernaturalist is therefore huge: they would have to build a theoretical-empirical edifice analogous to that of science, and show that such edifice does a better job at explaining the world than the scientific one. Good luck with that, my theologian friends.